Blues in the Night

This film stars mostly second and third-tier actors from Warner Brothers. Familiar actors like Jack Carson, Priscilla Lane, Lloyd Nolan and Wallace Ford are here, but there is also a starring role by the relatively unknown Richard Whorf as well as a supporting role by Elia Kazan--before he made a REAL name for himself as a director. And while none of these folks are huge stars, they do a fine job and the film has the usual high quality and polish you'd expect from the studio.

This film is sort of like a fairy tale about a group of musicians who love Blues, though it's NOT exactly the same style you'd find in Black America--it's more like a big-band/Hollywood idea of the Blues! It's filled with various clichés (such as the BAD girl who might break up the band) but because it's made so well and the music quite enjoyable, it's still worth seeing. Just be sure you aren't looking for THE Blues! Not great but for old movie fans (like myself), it's worth seeing.

A real mish-mash of a movie which within its sub-90 minute running time contains enough characters and plot-lines to carry at least three films.

It starts off straightforwardly enough as talented pianist Richard Whorf's Jigger character puts together with his mates a hot swinging band who promptly hit the road looking for a break. Included in their ranks are Priscilla Lane as their vivacious girl-singer, her errant husband, trumpeter Jack Carson and mile-a-minute clarinettist Elia Kazan.

So it rolls along for the first third like a good-time, grown-up Rooney and Garland feature until, that is, the band crosses paths with escaped gangster Lloyd Nolan, who after initially repaying their collective kindness by robbing them of the little money they have, later relents and promises them a gig at his old haunt, where he reunites with his old flame Betty Field, shifty accomplice Sam and sad-sack drunken barman Brad, none of whom were expecting or are exactly appreciative of his return.

After Field tries and fails to lure Nolan back she eventually settles on Whorf and entices him away with her to the big city where he gets a job in a chintzy, fancy-dan band, all dress-suits and shiny shoes but who play the most appalling music, indeed I still can't decide whether the band's featured number "Sez You, Sez Me" is deliberately awful just to highlight how low Jigger has sunk, but believe me, it's about the worst musical number I've ever heard in a vintage Hollywood feature.

Anyway, there are a number of unlikely twists and turns from there till the end, taking in murder, domestic tragedy, a fist-fight and an automobile smash before the film leaves you breathlessly back where it started as if nothing had happened in between.

Director Anatole Litvak just about prevents the whole thing from going off the rails pretty much by just ploughing on regardless. Don Siegel contributes the innovative montage sequences, a typical Litvak trait, although he does overdo them a little this time. You also have to excuse or at least accept some un-P. C. treatment of a partially disabled character but overall, despite having more crossing-points than the New York metro, I was won over in the end by the movie's energy and drive.

I liked Whorf, an actor I've not come across before, who comes over like a cross between Dick Powell and Alan Ladd, which is exactly what his part demands, Lane brings her customary brightness and can hold a tune too while Field makes a good impression as the gangster's moll / femme fatale of the piece.

Best known today for containing the Oscar-nominated title song written by Harold Arlen - Johnny Mercer (and that one comic-clinker number apart, the music is excellent throughout) this curate's egg of a musical/gangster/noir movie is worth delving into.

This is a very offbeat kind of film that is not well known. You'll either really love it - I do - or you'll not care for it at all. Anatole Litvak, who directed so many womens' pictures, directs this odd little film that starts out as a kind of "small town band does good" picture, takes a turn into gangster territory, and then gets really dark with a venture into film noir and mental illness. Nobody in this film was a big name at the time, and I get the feeling it was one of those films that Warner's liked to grind out like sausages in the 30's and 40's that just happened to turn out to be rather special. Great performances are turned in from everyone involved, which includes Priscilla Lane as a good girl with depth, Lloyd Nolan as a gangster with a touch of the entrepreneurial and even a bit of a mentor, Jack Carson as a heel with a large bag of excuses for his behavior, Betty Field as the gangster's moll who aspires to be a singer and also ruins men as a hobby, and Richard Whorf as the musician and bandleader who falls for the moll and also into temporary insanity. Also note that future great director Elia Kazan shows up playing a small part as one of the bandmembers.

Released just three weeks before the beginning of World War II, it provides a snapshot of how the Depression and the era of the gangster were receding into memory just as an age of optimism was beginning that would go on hiatus during the war effort, and restart and peak after the war was over. Great atmosphere and great acting - highly recommended.

Everybody's heard of this movie because of the famous title song, but almost nobody's ever seen it. It defies genre classification -- both a musical drama and a sort of missing link between the Warners gangster movies of the 1930s (mugs, molls, and rat-a-tat dialogue) and 1940s film noir (femme fatale, dark shadows, smoky atmosphere, seamy underside of life). It's a genuine one-of-a-kind movie that deserves to be much better remembered than it is.

However, one commenter here needs to refresh his memory; BLUES IN THE NIGHT has nothing whatever to do with the career of Jimmy Lunceford or any other famous musician of the period. It's about a small jazz combo, not a big band, and they begin and end the movie as obscure journeymen living from hand to mouth between gigs.

This movie was a bit unusual because it starts off strictly like a musical the first 20 minutes. It had me puzzled; I didn't think I had rented a musical. Well, it wasn't, as it turned out, even though music was a central element in the story. The rest of the film was a combination of drama, film noir and melodrama. At least that's the way I saw it and, yeah, I was glad to see IMDb confirm my description when I got to the title page here to post the review.

The only time the movie bogged down was when it became a little too melodramatic in a few spots. Betty Field ("Kay" )was usually in those scenes, playing a woman with a chip on her shoulder. As I watched her, I thought, "Wow, this woman is tailor-made for film noirs. She could have been another Marie Windsor." Sadly, she wasn't, but she was in a good number of movie and television shows. Still, I think noir would have been the best vehicle for her.

Priscilla Lane plays the female opposite: the wholesome-looking good gal ("Character") who just wants the band to click and for everybody to be happy. Heck, that's what the band in general wants, but "Jigger" is the guy who keeps putting a monkey-wrench into the deal and seems to be the band member whom everyone looks to for leadership.

Richard Worf plays "Jigger," and he's so-so as an actor. The fact he never made it big is understandable. There's a smoothness to his delivery that's missing. His changed his career from acting to directing in 1945 and did better at that. Obviously the same can be said for another member of the band in this story: "Nickie," played by Elia Kazan, who classic film fans know as a very famous director.

When all is said-and-done, actors Lane and Lloyd Nolan ("Del") seemed to be the most "real" in this film, and those two were the ones who had the best careers of this cast, particularly Nolan. Jack Carson and Howard da Silva are also in this movie and they're "known" actors, too.

My favorite part of the movie was a very short scene with about 15 minutes left with "Jigger" was in the hospital and he was hallucinating. The innovative camera-work was terrific, right out of Dali painting. Kudos to director Anatole Litvak for some good closeup shots and interesting camera angles and use of light, in that scene and others in the film. This movie is very well photographed. Ernie Haller was the cinematographer. Haller's resume includes some very famous films.

The odd mix of genres makes this intriguing movie I'm glad I checked out, and I recommended to fellow classic film fans.